Open 580: Tit For Tat - Game Over!

[Paschendale]

Le sigh...

Spitfire produced no valuable content and was concerned with self-defense from the get go. His reactions were substantially larger than whatever criticisms were laid against him. He had minimal interest in determining anyone else's alignment and his reactions to other people's ideas were more focused on the person offering those ideas than on the ideas themselves. That is, he was looking for something safe to attach to, rather than trying to figure anything out.

This is classic newbscum behavior. As you may have seen in my initial comments, I was reluctant to accept something so obvious. I've learned to second guess reads made so quickly. However, Spitfire's content continued not to come from a place of trying to figure things out, but rather were solely about his own position. He could have just been lynchbait, but his actions didn't confirm that idea. They confirmed the idea that he is a beginner scum who isn't quite sure how to look genuine when he doesn't really mean it.

Meanwhile, since Xay has arrived, his primary preoccupation has been with excusing Spitfire's play, rather than doing something better himself. This is someone concerned with protecting himself and surviving, not finding scum. That's why his only real target has been me, the loudest detractor of his slot.

------

Shinobi, meanwhile, has spent a lot of time stalling. He seriously advocated for a policy lynch, which is pretty much always a bad idea. He, like Spitfire, got overly defensive at the drop of a hat and even misrepresented my criticism of him in order to throw off suspicion. He also looks as if he is trying to leverage his position, rather than determine alignment. His vote and then immediate unvote of Bulba looked like he was trying to see if the rest of the group would think him town for the vote, rather than it being a good vote he'd stand behind. And then his vote on Nether is just plain awful. This is someone looking for a strategic position, not scumhunting.

His waffly bit about semantic differences also really struck me. It was a way to justify his conclusions without actually supporting them. He was basically admitting that he wasn't going to have good reasons for his votes, and that his predetermined positions would just have to do. We were in agreement about Shinobi for a while? What changed for you?

PeEdit: Because he's scumhunting and making good points. Things that you are not doing.

[Shinobi]

Saying someone isn't scumhunting is so unbelievably subjective.

Rest of your points are garbage, and also subjective.

Try harder pls.

[Shinobi]

Alternatively alternatively, if I'm town, who's your next lynch target?

Outside of Xay, of course.

[Shinobi]

UNVOTE:

I'm going to give you some room to breathe. Use your thinkbrain and come up with different lynches aside from the two that most certainly aren't happening today.

Your life may well depend on it.

[Paschendale]

Acryon, probably. Though Mala's last few posts pushed her up the list a bit.

[Shinobi]

Acryon, probably. Though Mala's last few posts pushed her up the list a bit.

Why and why? I'm vaguely aware of your acryon read so I know it's not coming out of nowhere, but I'm kind of "eh" on it.

Also, do you have any other reasons to back up your Nether read aside from "he's scumhunting" which I'm not particularly convinced by?

[Aquanim]

Le sigh...

Spitfire produced no valuable content and was concerned with self-defense from the get go.

If I were a newb and Bulbazak claims I'm flat-out scum straight out of the gate, I'd be concerned with self-defence too. Even back then he is still talking about his reads on other people's alignments (see #103 and #107 for instance).

His reactions were substantially larger than whatever criticisms were laid against him.

I straight-up disagree with this one. Definitely isn't an accurate assessment of my interactions with him. If you're thinking of your interaction with him (around #290), well... you in fact badly misunderstood/misrepresented him from my point of view, and while I wouldn't have reacted like he did I can well imagine geting framed-up in such a manner might well piss him off.

He had minimal interest in determining anyone else's alignment and his reactions to other people's ideas were more focused on the person offering those ideas than on the ideas themselves. That is, he was looking for something safe to attach to, rather than trying to figure anything out.

I don't follow this at all, except for mildly disagreeing with the first bit; he had some quite interesting discussions with some people which helped me read them, if nothing else. Unfortunately we're never going to see what his own conclusions would have been since he replaced out. Annoying, that.

This is classic newbscum behavior. As you may have seen in my initial comments, I was reluctant to accept something so obvious. I've learned to second guess reads made so quickly. However, Spitfire's content continued not to come from a place of trying to figure things out, but rather were solely about his own position. He could have just been lynchbait, but his actions didn't confirm that idea. They confirmed the idea that he is a beginner scum who isn't quite sure how to look genuine when he doesn't really mean it.

A lot of the focus of the thread was on him, thus it doesn't suprise me a great deal that a lot of the talking he was doing was about himself. He was asked a great many questions along those lines.

Meanwhile, since Xay has arrived, his primary preoccupation has been with excusing Spitfire's play, rather than doing something better himself. This is someone concerned with protecting himself and surviving, not finding scum. That's why his only real target has been me, the loudest detractor of his slot.

I don't actually see much preoccupation with defending Spitfire's play in Xay's ISO, at least not of his own volition. There's #571, which was specifically requested by Nether; #575 #582 #599 #601 #605 #607 #610 etc. are all a continuation of his discussion with Nether. I can't find any posts of Xay defending Spitfire which

aren't

a reply to something he kinda had to reply to. He gave his reads (admittedly not in much detail) in #587, and claims to have been sick or something for some of the game. I'd love to see some more "finding scum" in his posts, but in his position as replacement into a bad slot I can see why there might not be a whole lot of proactive behaviour even if he's town.

Shinobi, meanwhile, has spent a lot of time stalling. He seriously advocated for a policy lynch, which is pretty much always a bad idea.

Not all that seriously, really. Policy lynches may be a bad idea, posturing about one to make a player shape up is not.

...
His vote and then immediate unvote of Bulba looked like he was trying to see if the rest of the group would think him town for the vote, rather than it being a good vote he'd stand behind.

I still don't understand what was going on there.

@Shinobi

: what was your reason for unvoting Bulbazak? IIRC you were pretty vague about it, but made it clear you had some "revelation" or some such.

...
We were in agreement about Shinobi for a while? What changed for you?

What changed for me is that I actually tried to get Shinobi lynched, and failed. No real interest, and too many lazy unexplained town meta-reads on him. I'm not one to leave my vote on a lost-cause wagon.

[Shinobi]

I unvoted Bulbazak because I realized there were multiple explanations for him accusing me:

1) Confirmation bias.
2) An inside joke based on a game we played together where he frustrated me to no end.
3) A reaction test.

The key thing here is that I realized that there was plenty of room for him to say what he said as either alignment, despite his read being rather meh. There's also the fact that he knows that he can frustrate me if he pushes really, really hard and decided not to based on players contesting his read, so I guess meta also kind of played into me leaving him be.

[Xayzeck]

That's why his only real target has been me, the loudest detractor of his slot.

Nah I'm voting you because objectively your case is bullshit.

[Paschendale]

What changed for me is that I actually tried to get Shinobi lynched, and failed. No real interest, and too many lazy unexplained town meta-reads on him. I'm not one to leave my vote on a lost-cause wagon.

I feel like this is exactly what's happened with the Spitfire wagon, too. It wasn't really discussed seriously, and a lot of the group simply ignored it, or decided he was lynchbait like you have. If it had reached a conclusion, I would definitely have come aboard onto a Shinobi wagon. I would do it now, too.

His latest post is about as waffly as you can get, for example, completely ridding himself of any responsibility for a bad read on Bulba.

Nah I'm voting you because objectively your case is bullshit.

Exactly, because it's on you and you don't like it.

[Xayzeck]

Pasch, you like to do this thing where you don't quote or link posts to help justify you read, and you end up just summarizing everything and making this narrative of a user's ISO.

I hate it.

Why? Because people are going to review that ISO with your narrative in mind, and everything that your narrative shares in common with a player's ISO is going to stand out a LOT more, even though your narrative is inaccurate.

[Xayzeck]

Saying that my play can largely be defending my predecessor and nothing else, not even scumhunting, is so superficial, and misreps me so much, it's literally the MOST horrible thing you could say about me, it just sounds like you're trying to make me look bad.

You complain that none of my posts come from a "trying to figure you out" perspective, likewise for my predecessor. Have you ever tried to figure me out? Because I initiated an interaction with you that went absolutely nowhere.

Can we rope this guy now?

[Shinobi]

I'm not really sure if I want to, tbh.

[Shinobi]

I don't really know if we have a choice at this point, though.

[Xayzeck]

That depends on who you want to flip the wagon onto next.

[Shinobi]

I know. I'm thinking about where I'd direct it but I need more time to figure out where I'd steer us.

And I'm not sure I can do that without pulling an all-nighter, which I blatantly can't do since I have to work tomorrow.

What a pain.

[Aquanim]

I commend Paschendale's ISOs in Mini 1572 (where he was town and mislynched) and Mini 1592 (where he was mafia and lynched) to your attention.

My initial assessment is that Paschendale's... indignation at being scumread and having a wagon run on him is common to both his town and scum game, as is his insistence that whoever is scumreading him is completely misrepresenting him.

I may have more thoughts on this.

[Shinobi]

I don't think we even have a single mafia in our current votespread.

[Aquanim]

I don't think we even have a single mafia in our current votespread.

Why, and why are you townreading Paschendale now?

[Shinobi]

It's not that I'm necessarily townreading him.

Look at the votespread. If there's mafia in any of the top wagons, where does mafia have to vote in order to cause a voteswing? The answer: anywhere. All of the targets are totally viable and it wouldn't make much of a difference because a large number of people are okay with dave, Pasch, Luca, or even Xayzeck getting lynched.

I wish I could elaborate more or flesh out a better opinion, but I'm playing nowhere near my normal level and I wouldn't even be surprised if I was wrong.

[Shinobi]

I need to sleep.

[Netherspite]

While you're my strongest townread so far, Aquanim, and some of your arguments look reasonable, I find it suspicious that Paschendale's wagon is meeting literally no resistance.
I can't see a wagon on a scum going so easy.

Also, 2 of votes on him were really looking like OMGUS votes. I agree with Paschendale on that.
So despite agreeing with some of the arguments against his slot, I can't talk myself into voting him. I believe that he'll flip town.

So a question to everyone who votes him. Who are you considering as the alternative for today?

[Aquanim]

It's not that I'm necessarily townreading him.

Look at the votespread. If there's mafia in any of the top wagons, where does mafia have to vote in order to cause a voteswing? The answer: anywhere. All of the targets are totally viable and it wouldn't make much of a difference because a large number of people are okay with dave, Pasch, Luca, or even Xayzeck getting lynched.

I wish I could elaborate more or flesh out a better opinion, but I'm playing nowhere near my normal level and I wouldn't even be surprised if I was wrong.

I can see where you're coming from with that argument. The problem I have with it is the character of those wagons.

Dave's kind of had those three votes sitting on him all day, and all three of them have been lurking/VLA quite a bit. That wagon has zero momentum, anyone voting for it would come under serious scrutiny. You'd need a really good case to make that fly.

The ground kind of fell out from under the Luca wagon when Bulbazak dropped it. Same for your wagon when I dropped it.

Spitfire/Xayzeck would be the most plausible wagon for scum to try to drive, if he is town and Pasch is scum. Maybe that's what TSO is doing - though I must admit I would not have expected him to be that obvious. Then again, town do not have a monopoly on playing poorly when they are short on time.

There might be scum *on* those wagons, but anybody trying to jump to them now (or any time in the last couple of days) would be pretty suspicious.

If none of them are scum, who are we left with?
Aquanim, Bulbazak, Tempest, Malakittens, acryon, TSO, Netherspite

Can you come up with a workable scumteam in that pile?

Nevertheless, I'm not sure you're wrong.

[Aquanim]

While you're my strongest townread so far, Aquanim, and some of your arguments look reasonable, I find it suspicious that Paschendale's wagon is meeting literally no resistance.
I can't see a wagon on a scum going so easy.

Nobody else has been pushing much of anything all day, though... there was the Spitfire/Xay wagon (which did not feel like a lynch on scum to me) and Bulbazak's push for Luca. Besides that I don't remember anything I'd describe as a serious case made by anyone else, certainly nothing I felt was going to result in an actual lynch.

I have two working hypotheses:
1) everyone capable of pushing a decent wagon has been busy
2) town has been almost completely wrong all day

[Shinobi]

Why do people always ask for scumteams? You only need one suspect.

In all honesty, I need sleep. I'll try to figure something out in the morning. If I can't, I might let this Pasch lynch go just to see what we're dealing with.